Sophie Blackall

As a little girl growing up in Australia, Sophie learned to draw on the beach with sticks and was obsessed with Winnie-the-Pooh. The tale of the bear and his friend Christopher Robin was the first book she bought with her own money. She read it many times and played with her friends in the “Hundred Acre Wood” they created in the garden. Sophie feels all this inspiration led to her winning the Caldecott Medal in 2016 for her illustrations in “Finding Winnie,” written by Lindsay Mattick. Sophie has illustrated over 45 books for children including the “Ivy & Bean” series. Her most recent book, the Caldecott-winning “Hello Lighthouse,” is a charming look at a lighthouse keeper’s life and family and is the focus of a spring 2019 program in five coastal Maine schools.

Sophie is an ambassador for the Measles and Rubella Initiative, which brought her to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2012, to India in 2013 and has produced a series of illustrations to promote the elimination of measles through immunization. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, a city that she just couldn’t resist, and can be visited at www.sophieblackall.com.